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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

It's really ironic I think that Donald Trump, despite his "drill baby drill" rhetoric and paying billions of dollars to halt wind projects, will likely be responsible for the largest surge in clean energy developments in history.

Trump has shown that the US can not be trusted and is not a reliable ally, and his Iran-scapade, like Russia's invasion of Ukraine before it, has shown every other country that the absolute worst thing you can do is be dependent on energy imports from despotic nations (US now included) and volatile areas of the world. All these countries are racing to wean themselves off fossil fuels as fast as possible, largely due to Trump.

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>largely due to Trump

I know the US has a main character syndrome but this has been going on for decades now, Donald Trump is not responsible for what happens in the rest of the world regardless of what US news says.

China has been adding a United Kingdom's worth of solar for several years now, Pakistan replaced 40% of its energy supply with solar after floods in recent years, Germany over the last 30 days produced 70% of its energy from renewables etc.

"Drill Baby Drill" in 2026 was already the mentality of a Japanese holdout soldier years after the war is over. It's a purely ideological thing.

Here in NZ, what Trump has been doing in the Middle East is having a huge impact on policy, especially with the upcoming elections this year. Trump has reminded us (and I imagine many other countries too) that relying on other countries for fuel is fraught with danger. EV sales have spiked here, and all of the political parties are scrambling to come with electrification policies. So for NZ at least, I definitely agree with the OP comment about Trump's influence.

I agree with most of what you wrote - the energy transition has been happening for a long time now. Indeed, my argument that Trump's malfeasance is causing countries to accelerate plans for energy independence wouldn't even be possible if costs for renewables hadn't come down drastically in the last few decades.

But it's undeniable that the deglobalization that is occurring, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz (not to mention issues in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait), is causing many countries to accelerate their plans, if just for the simple reason that the cost pain now makes the economics of renewables all the more favorable.

Decade not decades. Which coincides with… Trump’s first term.

https://statbase.org/data/chn-solar-power-generation/

it also coincides with the size of the global oat milk market, thank god those hipsters solved the climate problem.

Didn't know we needed to go over causality and correlation. China put itself on the renewable energy path during the 10th and 11th Five year plan, and the so called National Action Plan on Climate change which was ratified in IIRC 2007.

https://chineseclimatepolicy.oxfordenergy.org/book-content/b...

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